Today, we are talking about recasting the relationship between men and women.
Olivia: I’m Olivia S. Benson, everybody knows that, and everybody knows that I put the S because otherwise if you Google me, you’re going to find Mariska Hargitay, people. So, Olivia S. Benson. Today, we are talking about recasting the relationship between men and women.
And if you guys have been around for a while, you’ve seen we’ve done two prior segments where I appeared talking about it. But today, we have a guy, a guy’s here to talk about this timely and sometimes controversial topic. So, Austin, tell everybody who you are.
Austin: Good morning. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. So, my name is Austin Shission. I live in Pennsylvania. I currently own a marketing company, a coffee shop and a tea shop. I’ve had those for a few years now.
I am married to an incredible woman. We got married just a little over a year ago and we have a five-month-old baby. So, it’s been a journey. It’s been exciting. And I just turned 30 this year as well. So, I hit one of those big life milestones and seeing where life takes me right now.
Olivia: Great. Fantastic. So, you have an incredible amount of things going on. And Austin, from my perspective, is just an amazing human being, just in general, just awesome, awesome, awesome. So, let’s just say this. He’s a little bit younger than I am. Let’s just put that out there. You can put me wherever you want in terms of age, but let’s just say he’s a little bit younger than I am.
So, for those of you who’ve been watching, the series is from Answers from Within, and it’s chapter seven, recasting the relationship between men and women. And if you haven’t read the book, it’s available on Amazon. And by the way, there are basically four chapters in the book that deal with big human dramas.
And the book is a spiritual guide for finding answers to work-life issues. But as I developed the book, I realized that, yeah, we come to the planet, we are here to do a work that the universe prepares us and sends us to do. But there are actually some blocks for some people in the way.
The universe might provide you with gifts and talents, right? But you could get here to planet Earth and somebody says you can’t, let’s just say, exercise them. So I had to address some specific issues. One of them, especially in America, is race and what happens when you have a gift and a talent and that is blocked by racial issues.
The other one is women and what happens when you have a gift and a talent and that expression is blocked in some particular way. And the other one is sexuality and gender roles and what happens when you have a gift and a talent and you come to the planet and that expression is blocked in some way. So those things are covered in chapters in the book.
But then we get, with regards to men and women, because it’s at the core of life, we realize that, okay, there have been a lot of issues. We’re talking from the beginning, we’re talking Adam and Eve, problematic, because Eve was the problem. I don’t know what happened to Adam. He could make up his own mind, as Eve made him do it, right? So we have a problem from the initial story.
So the situation now is we need to update. Let’s recast how this works. So this is where we start, Austin. So you tell me, what are your thoughts?
This Is Still Happening in 2026
Austin: Oh, wow, it’s interesting. So I grew up in a church going household and learning all those. Now, I definitely grew up with parents who taught me right from wrong, and that wasn’t necessarily the case. So it was an interesting dynamic, learning certain things in a church on a Sunday, but also being taught by my parents that everybody can do anything and there’s no limitations, which is the world we live in today.
And being around the same type of people also helped to kind of instill those values in me. As I got older, I started to realize how deep rooted some of this thought process was that we’re discussing, about having those gender normative roles where women only do this, men only do this.
Growing up around the people I did, I didn’t really see that. As an adult, I’m like, this is still happening in 2026. Or even five years ago, this is still happening in 2020, 2021. Like, this is crazy to me. So that was kind of eye opening to me, kind of getting out of my bubble when I became an adult, went to college, learning that this thought process is still around.
Olivia: So have you seen, in terms of what you’re describing, have you seen circumstances in which women are sort of cast in a role, a limited role of some kind? Clearly, like, this is what they believe?
Austin: Oh, all the time. It’s definitely — where I actually see a lot from, this might upset some people and it’s crazy to me, I know, TikTok’s the crazy thing that we see, loving the TikTok.
So, in my algorithm, it shows me a lot of younger people, and a lot of the younger people I see that are casting these roles are women themselves. I see this all the time. And of course, men have a huge part of that, no doubt. But I see it with women on both sides. They’re saying, I’m submissive to my husband, he tells me what to do. This is how it’s supposed to be. And all that.
So it’s been eye opening on that end, too. I see it from men all the time. And it doesn’t excuse it, but I kind of expect it from men. I’ve seen the way men act. And it’s terrible sometimes, right? And it’s hard to see the way they act. It’s more surprising to see coming from women as well.
Olivia: Yeah. So when you hear — to you, as a young man of 30 — when you hear submissive, what do you think?
Austin: To me, it’s, they have to listen to everything their husband says, or significant other, I guess. When we typically talk about this, we’re talking about marriage relationship, I guess it could be partners, girlfriends, whatever, boyfriends.
But yeah, when I see that, I think, oh, the women’s submitting to their husbands, wherever the husband says goes, the husband dictates the finances, dictates everything in household, controls the household. And a lot of times what I see is — and I’ve experienced this personally with people I have acquaintances with — they’ll say, oh, yeah, my husband, or my wife has to stay at home with the kids and take care of them. I go work and she’s not allowed to work, or she doesn’t need to do work because it’s only my job to make the money and all that. And it’s a little off putting sometimes. It’s a little weird to me.
Olivia: Yeah. Well, where do you think that all comes from? What do you think it began for you as you see it? Because you were talking about church and stuff like that. And a lot of this belief system that’s floating around out there — people don’t even go to church, but then they come up with this submissive. And it’s a biblically based sort of system, but most of the people don’t go to church. Where do you think it comes from?
Austin: I think indirectly, it still comes from that, but I see a lot of this stuff now. And this goes beyond just the submissive relationship that we’re talking about. It goes to a lot of other issues where kids will grow up in a household and their parents didn’t go to church, but their grandparents went to church and their great grandparents went to church. So those ideals were passed down through the generations with real reasoning or understanding of what those ideals mean or meant.
And I know you mentioned it in your book as well, or in some interviews, but like, okay, at some point, maybe 500 years ago, that made sense for certain situations, right? If a man had to go out and take care of certain things and the woman couldn’t, just based off strength or whatever, which is totally fine. But we’re holding on to these things from 100 years ago or 200 years ago, just, oh, that’s how our family is. The husband’s always been in charge.
So I’m going to teach my kids that, and my kids are going to teach their kids. And then it gets lost and then no one really knows why they’re doing it. They’re just doing it.
Where’s the Update?
Olivia: Exactly. That’s the thing. And the worst part about it is not 200, it’s 2000 or 3000 years that we’re talking about.
And I think in every conversation and every interview that I’ve had about this, I’ve talked about the scroll, right? So you have a kid — and this was my experience — I could not pass down what I had been taught to my child because he had an iPad and iPhone and iMac and what else is there? And every Android device and whatever was out there. And in addition to that, the ability to literally Google in two seconds and know the answer to almost anything.
Let’s not even start with ChatGPT. That’s a whole other level, right? And all the AI stuff. Now, how do I explain to this newly arrived human being that the boss of this entire situation, the one who created it, everything here — everything here was created by this being, but we have this technology, but it does not.
And I think that that is the core, right? That’s the core of the entire situation. And I want to say this is very important because nobody is casting aspersions. Like you said, okay, fine. That was the story. That’s how we understood it. But the update, where’s the update? Because that’s the reason a lot of younger people are questioning everything.
They’re not going to sit down, and you can’t say those things and be like, yeah, there’s a guy with a beard and on a throne with tablets. They are going to not accept it. And the concept of God and spirituality is at the core, certainly of my life, but in a different concept of what that is and what it means in my life.
So when you as a man see, for example — let’s say you had a daughter, what would you expect for her today in her life? And what kind of limitations, if any, do you think would be acceptable? Would there be any limitations that you could imagine saying, yeah, well, you’re a girl, you can’t do this?
Austin: No, no limitations. That gets you to a slippery slope real quick. That’s where you say, oh, there’s this one limitation, and we can make two limitations. Now that’s not to say I don’t think there are definite limitations out there.
And I don’t want to veer off from our point exactly, but I think a lot of these limitations are limitations put down by the law, which is changing. I mean, I know you would have had a little bit experience with this with your mom or parents or grandparents and like that, but it wasn’t until the 1970s — women couldn’t open a credit card or get a mortgage or something like that. So I think a lot of limitations are still being passed down from what legal limitations there were and how that’s affecting still today’s outlook on things.
Olivia: Right. So that’s exactly true. And by the way, I wasn’t limited by that. I was a little bit — I wasn’t affected by that.
Austin: That’s why I said your mom or grandparents. I didn’t say you. I’m just saying.
Olivia: So let’s see, what was I going to say? So here’s the thing. All right. It was what it was, right? It was written and it worked for a while, but what we’re talking about is the update, right? But there’s some guys that find it difficult because they feel like it affects them, or it takes something away from them, or their masculinity is defined by certain things. What’s your experience of that?
Austin: In terms of experiencing myself, I’ve never felt that way. That’s where it’s tough to connect with people like that. I’ve heard people say that. I know people who believe that, and I don’t want to excuse their thought process, or excuse any bad things they might be saying or believing, but it’s hard because there’s people I know who seem like genuinely good people. Then they’ll go say things like that. I’m like, dude, I’ve talked to you. You go help people all the time. You’re a good person.
Well, it seems like — and then you’re going and saying things like, oh, my wife needs to obey me and stuff like that. It’s like, the two sides aren’t matching up. So it’s tough to understand where a lot of that’s coming from. Again, because I’ve never experienced that in my life personally, and I’ve never felt that way.
So it’s like, get in their heads and be like, where’s your thought process coming from? Sometimes it’s tough. And I think when you start to challenge that, a lot of times the people that I would challenge, or want to challenge that thought process to, would look at it as an attack on their religion, rather than a criticism of the situation. They think it’s an attack on the entire religion.
That’s where the disconnect comes in, is bringing that up. It’s like, oh, so you hate God, or you don’t believe in Christianity, or you think the Bible’s wrong. It’s like, whoa, slow down. There’s one thing. I just don’t think you should be saying your wife should obey you all the time. I didn’t bring up religion at all. You did.
Olivia: Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That’s the hotspot with this topic.
And as you know, I say it in both of my books, and I’m working on another one, by the way, but the bottom line is that you come to the planet for a purpose. And from my understanding, the nature of God is that God doesn’t vary, right? God is not hot now and cold now. It doesn’t do it this way, and then do it that way.
God is absolutely consistent. So if God ever did anything, it did the exact same thing for every living human being. And that’s the premise, and that’s not against the Bible, right? And in addition to that, you probably know this from all the reading, but I’m a church girl.
I am churchified to the max. I was baptized in a Catholic religion when I was like three months old, went to parochial Catholic schools, went to a Christian school here in Florida, exposed to the Baptist religion. And in the middle of all of that, as if that wasn’t enough, I grew up in the Jehovah’s Witness faith, which is a very serious thing.
So in terms of church and exposure, the one thing that I will say that helped me was that I was a person that was interested in knowing God, right? So whatever faith you were in, you know God. Okay. And then the Bible also — listen, there are things in the Bible that have been misquoted, mistranslated, left out, put in, all kinds of different things.
There’s no perfection in it. Okay. So if you have a question — which I grew up in religious circles where questioning was not allowed, right? You just, this is what it is. And this is what it is going to be 3000 years from now. This is what we’re going to believe. And you ask no question. But if you say something as simple as what we’re discussing today — listen, the Adam and Eve story is not intended as a detailed, accurate account of how human beings came into existence.
How is that against the Bible? It is not against what is said. The only thing that we are saying is that it has to be updated.
Is the Male Ego at the Bottom of It?
Olivia: Now, the question I asked you before was about why men, and I have to ask you, because you’re saying you see them, you hear them saying these things. And of course you may not have the exact answer to the question, but do you think that the male ego is to some extent at the bottom of the problem?
Austin: Oh, absolutely. Not to some extent — it’s mostly the extent, the male ego has to do. I don’t want to say always was hand in hand, but the same people who believe this type of stuff have always been, when they were raised, were told, oh, men don’t cry. Men are supposed to do this. You’re weak if you show emotions. And all that ties together.
And that kind of ties into a toxic masculinity side of things, where men feel like if they don’t show that strength at all times, then they’re weak. And it means they can’t provide for their family, or they’re not good enough, or anything like that. So that thought process, along with tying it into, hey, the only way to show strength is by leading the household. And then this book tells me I have the authority and I should be leading the household. It kind of all ties together in that situation.
Olivia: Do you think that there’s a way to reach people with regards to this subject? How do you — obviously I do what I do because I think it’s important to put my little drop in the bucket, but how do you think that we could get guys to reconsider? Because let me pause that one and ask you this. What is it to be a man today? What does it mean to be a — because what we’re talking about is that some people are questioning, like, this is what it is to be a man. I’m the boss. That’s what makes me a man. And if I’m not the boss and you don’t listen to me, then I’m not the boss. So what in your view is the definition of what really makes a man?
Austin: See, that’s a tough one. I would say, well, then in that same instance, like what makes someone a woman. Right. And I think there’s no right or wrong answer necessarily, that like in today’s day and age, I can’t say, oh, these are the three things you need, at a minimum, to be a man. There isn’t, right?
It’s the life you live, the experience you live, the culture you grow up in. My wife is Ecuadorian, and I’m not saying it’s drastically different, but of course, culture definitely has an impact on gender roles, and seeing how that plays out to say what it means to be a man. I think I can say, like I said, the same thing wasn’t going to be a woman.
I think it’s respecting the people around you and understanding that your experience is different than a woman’s experience and other men’s experiences, and not compare to other people and say, oh, this is how other men are, so this is how I need to be a real man. Or, a real man is going to be open ended to experience in the world, living their life and adapting to the situations they’re in, not saying, oh, since men aren’t supposed to cry, I’m not going to cry in this situation, or I’m not going to show my emotions, or I’m not going to communicate with my wife or anything like that. I think all that silliness.
Olivia: Yeah. So I agree. I think it’s absolute silliness. So you’re speaking of what I call in the book the new man, right? The new man. And I think that this is where the rub is in the situation, because if for 3000 years I was told that this is what it is, and this is why it is, and now we have somebody saying, nope, that’s not what it is.
And it really was never what it was supposed to be. But it was what it was. And now we see, oh, wait a second, because we have a creator who is creating two beings, male and female, and everything in between. And I said that before — everything in between, go to chapter seven, you can read it. But to be respected, right? Because as everybody says, the creator doesn’t make mistakes. Right? There’s no mistakes.
And when it created, now we have the capacity for women to come into their full potential and do whatever it is that they need to do. So with some guys, this is what I heard. Somebody told me that if I don’t bring home the money, right? If I’m not bringing home the money anymore, and I’m not doing that traditional thing, what does she need me for? What am I here for? And I want to suggest to you that there is much that you can do other than bring home the money.
And I can speak for myself. When I say that the greatest thing that my husband does for me is to let me be — right, to let me be, not like get off of me in that kind of way, but just like he knows who I am. And he knows that I like writing. And he knows that I like what I’m doing. And he’s like, you do you, right?
And I don’t have a problem cooking. I like to cook. And it’s not a problem. And he doesn’t like to cook. I know other people where the guy cooks. I know people where the guy goes to the grocery store and cooks. That’s his job. And they split the duties. And this doesn’t mean anything in terms of I’m less of a man or more of a man, or whatever.
And for you to have a woman with you — like say, for example, your mate is a talented painter. She’s talented. She’s great. And you’re gonna say no, you can’t do that, because you’re a woman. And how could she be your friend? How could you do that to your friend?
Now they’re different phases, right? Because I can say for myself, when I was a young mother, there are certain things I couldn’t do because I was busy. And I had to, and that was my job. And I was okay with it. But different phases come along. But if you’re my friend, and you’re my mate, and you know I have, let’s say, this talent, how could you say you can’t do it? How could you love me? How could you love me?
Austin: And I think a lot of this too is, we’ve kind of talked about the toxic masculinity and ego and stuff. But even today, I’ll go back to TikTok. And you see so much content on TikTok all the time. I’ve seen TikToks of men saying, oh, look at my day in the life of a stay-at-home dad and taking care of three kids and all this. And it’s a lot of work.
Anyone who says being a stay-at-home parent is a lot of work is crazy. My wife’s a stay-at-home mom, taking care of our kid. I work at home, so it’s a little easier. But still, I see what she has to go through in a day, non-stop. Like the baby’s five months old.
But getting back to that, it was like a manual post. I’ll look at my life as a stay-at-home dad. And all the comments will be, oh, you don’t know how to actually provide for your wife. Oh, this is pathetic. Oh, why are you doing this? This is ridiculous. You should be out working. How lazy can you be?
So society, even today — and of course, not all society, but it’s enough, it’s prominent enough — it’s like, even if men want to, or might think, oh, we can flip these gender roles that we’ve discussed, we can get flashback for. And that’s not necessarily an excuse to not do it. But of course, peer pressure and society pressure has an impact on people’s lives. So it’s not helping the fact that’s so prominent out there, that when men try to do something different, they’re getting harassed for it.
It’s a Transitional Period
Olivia: Yeah. Well, everything in life that is worthwhile takes some doing. And that’s the thing about where we are right now on the planet. It’s a transitional period.
And if anyone’s seen the other videos where I talk, for example, about India, right. For me, India has always represented meditation and yoga and spirituality and the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. There’s tons of spiritual stuff coming out of India and spiritual traditions coming out of India.
And then you look and they have — I can’t tell you how many women have died, how many women have been assaulted, how many women have been murdered, how many women have been gang raped just for violence sake, just for violence sake, to make the point. And then you have to look at it and you have to say, well, when are we going to make that switch? Because that’s what we’re pushing for. That’s what we’re always pushing for, to get to the point where we flip over and we have that critical mass that says, yeah, we have enough people here that believe. That’s what we’re always working for.
Even in a talk like this today, we’re looking for one person, two people to say, you know what, that makes perfect sense, and I’m going to flip. I’m going to do something different. What were you going to say?
Austin: What do you think that inflection point is going to be? I’m speaking as a white privileged man. I understand that. But to me, it seems like everything’s plateaued in the past decade in terms of advancement of many rights, but especially women’s rights. It seems like — obviously I’ve learned about it because I wasn’t born until 96, but I saw all the changes that happened between 1920 up to the 1980s, 1990s for women.
Then as an adult, I’m like, oh, there’s still all these issues, but nothing’s happened in the past 15, 20 years, in my perspective. I’m not saying nothing, nothing, but it just seems like, seeing all these changes and all these advancements, it seems like, okay, it’s almost like, oh, we did good enough for women. Now we’re just going to stop. They got the 80% — is the 80 cents on the dollar number. They got the 80%. We don’t need to work on that last 20%.
From my perspective, just from what I learned and what I’m seeing now, it’s kind of just like, okay, we’re done.
Olivia: Yeah. Well, there’s always that element, because the one thing that human beings do not like is change. I think I said it in one of the videos where I said resistance is futile. Resistance is futile. You could resist, you can hesitate, you can do whatever you want, but the universe doesn’t go backwards. It never goes backwards. It’s not going back on itself. It’s progressive.
So I had a teacher and she would always say, there’s trouble at the border. When you’re transitioning in states, what would be called states of consciousness, you get to a certain place and then there’s all kinds of problems like, oh no, maybe we should go back. Let’s go back. There’s too much trouble here. Let’s go back. And that’s where we are on a number of different levels in the world and in America.
We — when I say we, because I’m talking about human consciousness — would rather stay where we were than deal with the change. And I’m going to be honest, one thing that is true is that we as human beings living on the planet, there’s so much to deal with. If you just want to — you have a kid now, so you understand. Everything is work. It’s challenging. Just everyday stuff. It is a lot.
Who has time to contemplate the meaning of the universe and what that has to do? That’s why TikTok I think is so popular, because they give you these little snippets, because people don’t have time, but it actually takes time. It takes time for you to contemplate, for you to think. And the reason that it’s important to do it, because it can change your life right now.
I saw a post. I forgot what country it was in Africa, but they are training men in this particular — I want to be clear, not the continent of Africa, but a particular country in Africa. And they’re training men to help their wives with household chores, which, many of those societies have always been patriarchal. And the guys are like, you’re women. But they’re training the men to help at home. You know why? Because it’s going to make everybody’s life better.
It’s going to make life better. If you understand that your mate, your wife, is a whole human being with gifts, talents, and abilities, and that your job is to support her in developing everything that she can be, then your life is going to be better. Now, if you think that your whole job is to keep her down, what kind of life is that? How does it make sense? You explain to me what a man could get out of attempting. How do people see that? How do guys see that? Like it’s a full-time job to keep somebody down.
Austin: Well, not for nothing. Like I said, I have a five-month-old baby. After seeing what my wife went through with the pregnancy and the birth, I feel like I owe her 30 years of housecleaning. She shouldn’t be doing it. I can never pay her back for all that, you know? And that’s one kid. If we have other kids — and plenty of families have two, three, four kids — you owe a lifetime for each kid. So right from the start, it just seems crazy to watch your wife or partner go through a pregnancy and a birth and be like, oh yeah, they still have to do everything for me.
But to your question in terms of asking how men can do that, again, I think, not to have a cop-out answer, but I don’t know. I don’t understand it. The way I grew up and seeing my parents treat each other properly and teaching me to treat any partners I have properly, seeing that now, I can’t — there’s the whole, oh, you have sympathy or empathy. Like in this situation, I have neither. I can’t understand. I can’t connect with it.
Where men get this whole idea that putting someone down — it’s like you mentioned a few times, they’re not just the mother of your children, not your wife. They should be your friend, not only your friend, your best friend, right? So would you go over your best friend’s house that was down the road and start putting them down the same way? You wouldn’t think of it. Your best friend, you would have a falling out. You would be getting a big fight and you wouldn’t be best friends anymore. So why is it okay to do it at home?
But yeah, the whole thing to me has always been a mystery. And again, I think it really goes back to that, oh, it’s just how I grew up. It’s how I was taught. And that’s not an excuse for it, for sure. But experiencing what I experienced in the United States over the past 10 years and saying, oh, this is how I grew up, this is what I was told — I can see now how hard it is just to break that generational understanding. It’s, oh, well, my dad treated my mom the same way. And I watched my grandfather treat my grandmother the same way. And on the other side of the family, it happened the same way. And my uncle, they would treat each other the same way.
It’s like, if you grew up in that, I can at least somewhat understand, I guess, why you have that. But to me, it gets tough. It’s like, okay, I understand what you thought when you’re 12, 13, 14, even 18 or 19. But when you’re 22, 23 years old, and you’re experiencing real life, you can’t look at a situation like, oh, that was wrong. That’s right. It’s tough for me. It’s like, okay, I’ll give you the past when you’re a teenager, and that’s — you’re a kid. I’m 30 years old, you’re 40 years old. Now there’s no excuse. What’s your excuse now?
It’s Uncontrollable. That’s the Problem.
Olivia: Yeah, that’s the whole thing. And the next question is until when? Right? Until when?
So the other part of that I have spoken about in the other videos and things, and the interview, is the fact that there is historically this idea that you burn women at the stake because they seem to have these mystical powers, right? They have women’s intuition. And let me tell you something. One of the things that I enjoy watching — I’ll start by using this, which is, you see men at the mall holding their wife’s purse by the time they’re 50 or 60. They’re like, yes, dear, they will listen.
Because I’ve seen it in mature relationships where you’re young and stupid, and you’re like, you can’t tell me what to do. But as life goes on, guys will be like, let me ask her, because she seems to have something that I don’t know what it is. But she’s usually right. Right. And that is not witchcraft, people.
Just when you have a kid involved in relationship to advance, like, what are we gonna do? Hold on, no plans, got my wife first. And she knows what’s going on. And that’s — women really run the whole, multiple levels, despite whatever people might say out there. The woman is a key.
And the genius of GEFS — you know, I call God GEFS, God, energy, force, spirit — is that it creates two energies that are complementary. Right? Guys are fantastic. I cannot imagine a world without men. I think it’s just wonderful. But then you got this other energy, you got the female, and the whole point is to get to a place of balance and respect. Like, wow, look at what God did here. Huh, that’s nice. Oh, look what God did here. That’s nice. Let’s work together.
Now, the story is that when the ancient men realized what the powers — because the ancient powers of the women, as we sort of dealt with magic and witchcraft, it seemed like something else. That’s something you couldn’t control. Right? So, oh my God, how did she know that? How did I not know that? How am I standing here and I can’t feel that and I can’t know that? That is uncontrollable.
That’s the problem. It’s uncontrollable. So then what you have to do is create systems to keep it under control. So you cover her from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, you keep her at home, you put her down so the energy is suppressed. That’s the system that was created. And it’s incredible because it was created basically all across the world, in different cultures that were not connected, but everything was developed to keep this kind of energy under control.
But imagine what the world could be if we could get the two energies into balance. I’m respecting you, you’re respecting me. I know that I’m here to fulfill a purpose. I’m given gifts, talent, skills and abilities, and you are too. We’re going to raise a family. We’re going to do it together. You’re going to use your gifts. You’re going to use your gifts. How could the world not be better?
How do we — the question before us is how do we get to that place where the fear, because what is underneath is fear. How do we eliminate that fear that some men seem to feel, that if you let this woman do whatever she wants, right, somehow I’m not going to be man enough? Because there’s a lot of negative things happening with regards to that topic. If I allow her to be all that she can be, I somehow cease to exist. I’m annihilated. I am less than. And that’s the issue that we’re facing today.
And people play out — there were a couple of cases that really horrible scenarios. So the question is, as a man, what would you say to a guy who feels that his whole existence is annihilated when his significant other appears to be maximizing who she is?
It’s All About the Insecurity
Austin: So what I was thinking about when you were saying that, and I think this leads into that, is I think a lot of that fear doesn’t even start at the professional level of, oh, I am afraid she’s going to do better than me professionally or anything like that. It’s a fear of insecurity in the relationship at a more core part than just the professional side.
And I’ve experienced this, not a ton personally, it’s been three or four situations where I’ll meet somebody and they’ll clearly tell me, oh, you can’t give me a ride. It’ll be a woman. Oh, you can’t give me a ride because my husband or my boyfriend at the time, whatever, we’ve agreed that we’re not going to be in a car alone with the opposite sex, or we’re not going to go out for lunch with a friend who is the opposite sex, we can never be alone anywhere, even in public, with someone of the opposite sex.
And there’s an insecurity thing there. And I don’t know the answer to that part, where that’s rooted. But I think that goes into what you’re asking about, the fear of letting somebody blossom is, oh, they’re going to blossom, and then I’m not going to be good enough for them anymore.
Yes. Oh, my wife said — oh, well, if I let her go get a job, and she becomes this vice president of sales at this company, or then she does all these great things. Now she’s making more than me and she’s doing better than me. Now, why is she going to stay with me? She’s going to leave me for somebody else, because I’m the one who’s less than in this relationship.
So I think the first step is making sure to have an understanding of your partner’s with you, and supposed with you for all the ups and downs. And if one person does better, it doesn’t mean your relationship’s breaking up. So it’s that security in their relationship first, before you even go to the professional side of things.
Olivia: Yeah. You know, there’s so many things that you said in there, but I wanted to — and I know we’re running out of time. No, don’t worry about the time. But I wanted to say, like, what could be better than having a woman who is with you not because of what you can give her? How could it not be better? How can you not be better? Like, oh, it’s okay if you have money, and it’s okay if you don’t, let’s make it together.
But to think that somebody loves you because of the fact that you only — not just only because of the money, or because you can take care of her. I think we’ve moved back that in light years, right? I want to love you because of who you are at the core of your being. I want to look at you and go, this is a good human being. This is a good person.
You know what I want to say? I want to say, I can trust this person with my body and soul. That’s what I’m looking for. Not, oh, he can pay my rent, he can do my nails, he can do this, he can do that. That’s not the whole thing. There’s some scenarios where that happens, but that’s not it.
Austin: Well, and this will be a whole nother discussion, whole nother time. But that’s where you get to the love languages, right? There’s five types of love language. And if you think your only way to show love is through the gifting part of love language, you forget about the intimate side, the emotional side, the doing acts of kindness and service, stuff like that. So I think that’s part of the issue too.
And again, I want to veer off into capitalism and all that, but we’re in this society where, oh, the only way I can show my love is let me get her this extravagant gift. Let me do this. Let me do that. And that ties right into, oh, if I can’t provide, I can’t give gifts, which means I don’t love it.
Olivia: Yeah, exactly. And the thing is that we’re in a time where I call it, I say that we’re upside down, because the things that are important are not really the things that are the focus. We’re sort of focusing, in my view, on the wrong things. The material things are good and they’re significant and everything, there’s no reason to live without them. But the thing that is foundational is about the other stuff.
I love you because of who you are and what maybe your giftedness or your talents, what you bring to the earth to give. And I understand that I have a sacred duty, whoever you are as a human being, to support you so that you can do what you came to do.
But I wanted to take a minute to talk about the scared about you being with somebody else. And this is, like, you as my significant other cannot be with somebody else. One of the historically known things about that story is that men could not tell who their children — if a child was theirs, right? So the way that you control that is to control who the woman is with or exposed to. So I’ve watched some videos and I go, where are the women in some countries around the world? The women are not really allowed out that much.
And that originated with the concept of protecting who your progeny is going to be. Now, where we are today is we’re saying a woman has the capacity to control herself, to manage herself. Of course, there are acts of violence against women. There’s assault, there’s rape, there’s things that happen. But the idea that foundationally, I can’t trust her is not the basis for a relationship, where I see her as such a weak child of God, so to speak, that I must make sure that her reproductive capacity is on lockdown. And that is what that is about.
Austin: That makes perfect sense. But still, in my eyes, it’s like, okay, even if that was the case before you could do DNA testing, wouldn’t that still mean you didn’t trust your partner in the first place? Whether it was 200 years ago, a thousand years ago, or present day, if that’s still the way you feel, then to me, there’s a deeper trust issue in the relationship that needs to be explored. And again, that goes back to the insecurity thing.
It’s all about the insecurity. So if you can’t trust them on the most basic level, then how are you going to trust them to be the vice president of sales or CEO or doing anything in the job market, when you can’t see them all day, every day, and know exactly who they’re interacting with and talking to?
Let’s Update the Paradigm
Olivia: Right. Well, that’s exactly the thing. Now, if you believe that, and like you said, whether it’s 2000 years ago or today — and we’ll give a pass for what it was, right? Because also, let’s say 2000 years ago, you could, as a guy, you could go off to hunt and gather and leave the women at home, and you could come back and they’d be gone because some other tribe attacked them and took them, right? That was the life. So you had the obligation to protect in certain kinds of ways.
But here we are in 2026, whether it was because you didn’t trust her back in the day or the circumstances of life, now we have a different story. Now it is, I’m an adult. I’m a human being. So are you. We live in a modern society and we need to go deeper than what we were doing 2000 years ago. That’s the concern.
And so when we talk about it, like we’re talking about it right now, we’re saying, hey, listen, we’re just saying, let’s update the paradigm. Let’s update the paradigm. No bad, because you can’t be mad about what happened 2000 years ago. Those people were doing the best thing that they knew how. And we made up a lot of stuff. We were wrong about a lot of stuff, but hey, here we are. Now we can look. Now you have facts. You can Google it and everything is there and you can find out what the story was. So let’s begin to build a new basis.
And I know that you are not somebody that has any of these issues, but you’re around people who do have these issues. And I know that I speak about this and I do my videos, and you hope that it has an impact, but you don’t know how far it goes. But the way I look at it is like every single drop makes a difference.
Austin: Well, yeah, it’s generally going to be a generational change, too. We’re not going to convince — and I hate when people say this, oh, well, they’re their whole life that way. They’re 80 years old. You’re not going to change their mind. Don’t try to change their mind. And I understand a little bit. I think it’s a little of an excuse, but we’ll get past that part.
But where I think we’re really going to change minds is changing the minds of young people. And then when they raise their children, that’s an impact. So of course, everything you’re doing and everyone in the world wants to do now to change this is going to have more of a trickle down effect. Like you mentioned, over the next one, two, three generations, you might change one mind today, but that means the kids they have and their kids and their kids means you actually changed 30 minds down the line.
And of course, we’ve seen this with every type of big change in the world. When you right an injustice, it doesn’t just happen in one year or two years. It takes generations to really root in there. And I think over the past 10, 15 years, I would say really around my generation, to be honest — I was born in 1996 — I think that’s when the social justice stuff kind of really started coming out of the woodwork, even more so than it could in the past. And that’s just because of the advent of the internet and social media and all that. But I think it’s my generation and younger who are going to really impact that change over the next 20, 30 years with our kids.
Olivia: Right. And I think that’s why I like talking about the foundation, because like you said, sometimes people just do things and they have no idea why. And it’s good. We’re human beings. So we’re like, hey, yeah, that works for me. I’m the man, I do this. And you just do that. And she doesn’t have the information and neither does he. Right.
So now we get to the place where we say, hey people, the information is here. This is the reason why this happened. This is the reason why women had to stay at the village, right? They had to stay at the village because it was safer. And there were other parameters that were involved. Now we’re not at the village anymore. Yeah. Go ahead.
Austin: You’re driving your Prius down to work and then getting a Starbucks for breakfast and going to work and coming home. Your wife’s not getting kidnapped in the middle of the day by a tribe. So we don’t need to keep using that excuse.
Olivia: Exactly. But it takes time and it takes thinking, and it’s also a loss of comfort, right? Because it’s easy. You said a few minutes ago — what did you say? You were privileged, or white privilege at 30 years. Right. So if you sit in this for your whole life and you don’t even think about it, why would you? You’re like, I’m good. You don’t need to, personally need to. Why?
Austin: If you’re a white privileged male, especially, like I have all the privileges I need, there’s no more privileges I could possibly get. Right. There’s no reason besides my own want to actually think about this or fight for any of this. Like I could not fight for any of the rest of my life and it wouldn’t affect me at all. Right. Like I’m never going to lose any of my rights. In 200 years the white males are still going to have their same rights, right? It’s who’s not going to have their rights. Is that minorities? Is that women? Is that other people?
Now, of course, I have my wife’s minority, and I’m a human being, so I want to care about other people. But if you’re living in — you’re married to another white person, it’s nothing against anybody who’s in that situation, but you just have no reason. It doesn’t pop up in your life on a daily basis. It just doesn’t. And you’re living your life. It doesn’t make you a bad person, but it also means you just have a reason to bring it up or think about it. So that’s the tough part too.
Olivia: Exactly. That happens often, that people are — they’re not bad. They’re not bad people. In fact, they probably don’t want to hurt anybody. They don’t want to hurt women. They don’t want to hurt minorities. Most people don’t wake up every morning saying, I want to hurt another human being of any gender, race, sex. They just don’t. However, that neutrality and that comfort has consequences.
And the thing is that you don’t have to be with a flag on the street marching down and protesting. What you have to do, in my view, is recognize number one, that it’s happening. Number one, it happens. Don’t be like, ah, this doesn’t really happen. It happens. And number two, the subconscious thing that you’re bringing with you.
I’m going to tell you a story. You’re not going to believe. Just to wrap this up. I got married when I was very young, in early twenties, just the other day. But anyway, my husband at that time was also very young and he was a decent human being, I thought. Of course, based on the other book, For the Love of My Father — where is it? This is my other book, talking about growing up without a father.
I think that getting married at that point was like just putting a blindfold on and walking down the street. I had no idea what I was doing. But anyway, I thought he was a decent human being. And one day we had this scenario where we had one car and I was supposed to go somewhere and come back. Let’s say I was supposed to be back at six and I came back late. Let’s say I came back at 6:15, and he was very upset, and I walked through the door and I’m all nervous because I had reason to be nervous, apparently. And he had a belt on, and he unbuckled his belt and did like a swashbuckler thing to hit me with the belt.
Now I had not seen this in him in any way, shape or form that would ever give me any indication that he was capable of such a thing. Of course, I’m not a little girl. I’m a big girl. And when he did that, I grabbed it and struggled to make sure, because I was like, what? You’re going to hit me with a belt? So I grabbed it and that ended, and I called his mother. His mother came.
Yeah. I called his mother. I was like, what do you mean? We were fairly newly married and all this kind of stuff. Now what I’m talking to is the people who have this kind of stuff underneath — where that came from in his subconscious programming that made him think that over something so simple, he could hit his bride.
That is what we’re dealing with in terms of what people believe, what’s coming down generationally, and that’s where we need to go dig it up. Because I’ve never told that story before publicly, but those are the kinds of things that are sort of buried underneath what some men believe. Because I guess, maybe looking back at it, this is many years ago, maybe he felt disrespected, right? Because I didn’t come back, or disobeyed, that I didn’t do what I was told to do. But he had never been that person to me.
We were both in college. We were both doing what we were doing, but he had that somewhere. And that’s why I talk about what I talk about, because that’s the kind of stuff that we need to dig up and get rid of. So given that story, first of all, what do you think about that story?
Austin: If I do that to my wife, even just pull the belt half out of my pants, she would be on a plane back to Ecuador immediately. I would never see her again. Like I could tell you, I couldn’t imagine — I don’t know, times are different. We can go through all that and situations.
Olivia: Hey, listen, it wasn’t that long ago. It’s not like it was in 1855.
Austin: Oh, I know, I know, but come on. I mean, we’ve seen it change a lot in the past 10 years, but yes, I just couldn’t — I’m just messing with you. I couldn’t imagine that situation. But again, I’ve heard about it a million different times. And again, I’m not making an excuse for any of that type of behavior, but kind of the fact that we’re talking about is this type of stuff is ingrained in people’s minds from generation after generation of being taught that.
So you said like, you never saw that from your husband, and maybe he was doing his best not to have that come out of him, but he knew — or maybe he didn’t know, but it was deep down there somewhere. And even if you try to suppress it, again, not excuse, but you can’t suppress something that’s been ingrained in you for your entire life and just make it magically go away. And again, there’s a whole nother discussion, but that’s where men going to therapy comes into play, and where a lot more men should be going to therapy, but that’s a whole nother way.
Olivia: I agree. I think you need help. Some people need help, because you’re just looking at it wrong, and you’ve been trained to look at it wrong. And when I use the word wrong, I’m not assigning any negativity to that. It’s been a matter of perspective. First of all, you could believe whatever you want. You can live however you want, but the consequences of your behavior is what tells you whether you need to get help.
And we were young and I didn’t even have any concept of life or anything else, but you have to have a lot of unmitigated gall to undo your belt in the modern era, in this modern era, and think that you’re going to hit the person that you’re married to. And this is nothing compared to other scenarios. We see women getting beaten, murdered, all kinds of different things.
But you said exactly what’s necessary. It requires us to do the work, to clean up, to clean up the unconscious programming that makes anybody think that this could be okay. And the reprogramming, which is, you know what, God, energy, force, spirit created the universe. He created all beings that are worthy of respect and worthy of coming to the planet to have something to offer. And how dare me, how dare me try to control, put down, hurt another being, another creation of the divine creator. How dare me? That’s where we are.
So we have to do the cleanup work, if you choose to. You don’t have to, but if you’re a human being living in this world, the call is to do the cleanup work and to set up a new paradigm. What else would you like to say to guys out there who are listening, who might be like, you know what, I don’t want to hear this? By the way, that’s my PEU. Did you see the sign? Planet Earth University. We all come here to learn. We come to learn. Planet Earth University. You can do it the easy way or you can do it the hard way, but you’re going to learn. Go ahead.
Austin: Yeah. You said easy way or hard way. To guys out there who may think this is all a bunch of garbage that we’re talking about, or don’t fully understand it yet — what’s the worst case scenario you have if you give a different approach a shot, right? You may think you’re living your best life. You’re in the best situation you could be.
I can say from experience, I was in a toxic relationship in the past and we were both, we weren’t good for each other, right? That’s not a dig on her and that’s a dig on me. We just weren’t good. But at the time I thought, this is — I’ve been with this person for five years now. We’re engaged. This is good. This relationship is, you know, you just — the hard stuff.
I’m in a very, very healthy relationship now. Looking back, I’m like, wow, was that relationship really bad? The one I thought was really good was horrendous, because I didn’t know. So I would tell people, there’s no harm in trying something different, right? If you feel like, if any part of this, even one sentence resonates with you, reflect on that and look at your life where you’re living it now and saying, hey, what are some minor changes really? Are they going to negatively affect you? Probably not. So giving that a shot and seeing how your dynamic with your partner could be different.
It’s an incredible feeling. And again, I wasn’t in a toxic relationship where we hurt each other physically. We definitely hurt each other emotionally. There’s no physical harming like that and nothing necessarily bad in that aspect, but still going from that toxic to the extremely healthy is, it’s changed my entire life. It’s helped me grow as a person. It’s helped me flourish my businesses. It’s helped every aspect of my life having that.
So if you think even there’s a small inkling of your relationship or the situation you’re in, that’s not totally healthy, give something a shot. No one’s saying go change your entire life overnight. No one’s expecting you to go wake up tomorrow and say, oh, I’m going to change every single thing I’m doing. Do something small that’s just a little bit different and see how that feels. And you’ll see things changing quickly.
Olivia: Great. That’s fantastic. I want to leave us with this thought for men, particularly. I don’t know how you look at this in terms of your daughters, right? Because the idea for me would be to leave the world different. So as a man, to leave the world better for my daughter, so that when I’m not here, the world that she lives in is safer for her, so that she can develop into everything that she can be, so that she can have a mate who treasures her and thinks that she’s the greatest thing since sliced cheese — and vice versa, of course — but to leave the world a better place so that your daughters don’t suffer. I think that that is the thing that I would ask of men.
So the book is Answers from Within. You got it. There it is. It’s on Amazon. It’s a spiritual guide for finding answers to work-life issues. And the chapter that we’re talking about today is recasting the relationship between men and women. Very significant for life on the planet.
Austin, thank you so much for showing up and for taking the time to have this conversation. I really appreciate it.
Austin: Thank you for having me.
Olivia: Okay, great. All right. So we will continue the conversation next week. We have another guest coming. Another gentleman shall be joining me to continue the conversation and to give another perspective.